Builders of Wooden Railway Cars ... and some of other stuff

J.G. Brill & Company

The J.G. Brill Company was founded in 1869 at Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania as J.G. Brill & Company, by John George Brill
(1817-1888) and his son, George Martin Brill. The elder Brill had come to the United
States in 1840 from Germany, where he had learned the cabinetmaker’s trade in
Bremen. He found work at Murphy and Allison’s Philadelphia car works, where he
rose to the position of foreman of the streetcar shop. In 1868/69 he left and
started his own car shop.

Brill advertisement from
the 1879 Car-Builders’ Dictionary.

The firm initially built all kinds of cars: horse-drawn
streetcars, cable cars, and passenger cars for steam railroads. But by the mid
1880s it was concentrating on the booming streetcar market.

As the firm prospered, it was chartered 1887
in Pennsylvania as the J.G. Brill Company,
and soon relocated to a large plant on Philadelphia’s Woodland Avenue.

In 1899 the company laid plans to consolidate its own activities
with those of several other firms into the Consolidated Street Car Company,
which would have absorbed 90% of the electric car builders in the United States,
but these plans were later abandoned.

This interesting coach
was built by Brill in 1874 before it began concentrating on the
streetcar market. Distinctive features include the bow-top clerestory,
small square windows and large-radius corners. It may look familiar, as
it was acquired by the Paramount movie studios in 1938 and appeared in
several films. It was acquired by the Nevada Heritage Association in
1971 and is now at the Nevada State Railroad Museum awaiting
restoration. You can read about it at
their
website.)

Brill was also one of the leading companies in
the 1905 attempt to consolidate a large number of streetcar builders into
something akin to a “trust” to reduce competition and thus improve profits
(though they denied this motivation). Unfortunately for Brill and the others
involved, they were a day late and a dollar short. Teddy Roosevelt was making a
name for himself as a trust-buster, and the effort just sort of evaporated. You
can read more about this at our page titled The
Streetcar Builders Consolidation.

Following the failure of the attempted
consolidation, Brill was incorporated in Pennsylvania 1 August 1906 and organized on 6
February 1907. It thereafter acquired the majority of the capital stock of the
Danville Car Company,
Danville, Illinois (1908).

All these acquisitions gave the company strategically
located plants in most parts of the country. In 1912, Compagnie J.G. Brill was
formed with a plant at Paris, France, that produced cars and trucks for electric
lines overseas.

Ford/Brill ambulance ca.
1918

In 1917, at the outset of the 1st World War, Brill joined with J. G. White & Company to
organize the Springfield Aircraft Corporation, producing airplanes for the war
effort. The production of airplanes was completed at the end of 1918.

In
1920, the combined production of all these plants in the production of electric
and steam railway cars, trucks and kindred appliances, approximated 3,700 cars
and 14,000 trucks per annum. Its principal plant in Philadelphia consisted of
some 28 acres.

Every conceivable type of car was built by Brill. A few of
the more notable Brill designs were the patented Brill Convertible Car,
in which removable side panels made the same car either opened or closed; the
patented semi-convertible,
introduced in 1902, with roof pockets where both sashes lodged, one upon the
other; the “Narragansett”
car, an open car with a patented two-step running board to facilitate
boarding by women in tight skirts; the heavy steel high-speed
articulated cars built in 1926 for the Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis; and the lightweight, high-speed
Bullet cars (below) developed
in 1930.

Now restored and on
display at the Orange Empire Railway Museum, this
Brill “Bullet”
began service 1 March 1932 as #127 on the Fonda, Johnstown &
Gloversville. Note the interesting way the flat safety glass was worked
into the bullet nose. Curved safety glass would not be perfected for
another two years. (Gino DiCarlo Collection)

Brill had patents covering virtually every component of car
construction, from trucks to trolley wheels, and the firm pioneered
“package”
selling and assembly line production.

Brill Corporation was formed in 1926 as a holding company owning
controlling stock in J.G. Brill Co. and the various Brill electric car plants.

As the trolley industry began its decline in the 1930's, Brill
experienced hard times, reporting a $1 million loss in 1933. One by one the
Brill plants closed, and production of trolley cars ended at the Philadelphia
plant in 1941, at least in part because it sold only thirty of its new
Brilliner
streetcars.

The Brilliner was an attempt to match the PCC car, a design
collaboratively developed by industry suppliers and major transit systems
to redefine the streetcar in the face of overwhelming automotive
competition. Similar in many respects to the PCC, the new car featured
styling and colors by famed designer Raymond Loewy, well-known for his
efforts on the Pennsylvania’s GG1 electrics.

Production of buses
continued, and the Brill interests were merged into ACF-Brill Motors, Inc., in
July 1944. ACF-Brill Motors itself ceased business in 1954.